The recent interventions of the courts on the issues of urban governance raise the question of the efficiency of our existing urban governance mechanism. The article digs deep into-why are we witnessing such pro-active intervention of the judiciary?
In one of the seminars in which I participated in Delhi on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), I had stated that the foremost town planner in the country is the Supreme Court (SC) of India. This has been substantiated by the intervention of the courts especially the SC in matters related to city governance. The recent comment made by the judges of the apex court – “Mumbai is sinking and Delhi is stinking: where’s the government”, as the article published in Tribune India explains the grim picture of our two important cities. The condition is other cities of the country is more precarious and worse than Mumbai and Delhi. Varanasi – the city represented by Modi, the PM, is termed as one of the dirtiest cities of the North.
The SC on July 12, reprimanded the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi for imposing himself as a superman, according to the hindu, but when it comes to the onus–then passing on the buck to someone else is the way of governance. This was in reference to the garbage disposal in the city of Delhi.
In similar interventions, the Himachal Pradesh High Court virtually metamorphosed into the civic body of Shimla city, to ensure that water is distributed adequately during the summer months. The Chief Justice of HP high court was seen visiting the water control room himself and magistrates were assigned the task to ensure that proper water distribution takes place, reported Hindustan Times.
The citizens of Delhi just recently were forced to knock the doors of the court to ensure that 17,000 trees are protected from felling for a housing project in Sarojini Nagar. So, does it mean that the cities will have to be governed by the courts and that too the apex court of the land? Will the courts have to take the initiative for effective delivery of services for the citizens in the cities?
Why are we witnessing such pro-active intervention of the judiciary? Except in Jammu & Kashmir (where the elections to the local bodies have not been held in the recent past) almost all the other states have local body administration. This comprises the elected council, Mayor/President, etc. Why is it that the local bodies, which were supposed to get the responsibility of managing the cities, through the 74th constitutional amendment have not been able to perform?
The overstepping of the judiciary cannot be ridiculed as the cities have actually failed to deliver!
The 74th constitutional amendment was considered to be a milestone for urban governance. In fact, this year (2018), happens to be the silver jubilee of the 74th amendment. But 25 years have shown that the cities capacities were not developed and the central and state governments actually controlled them through their representatives-the bureaucracy. The NITI Aayog has admitted the failure to implement the provisions of the afore said amendment according to economic times. Except in a few states, like the Left ruled West Bengal and Kerala and also Madhya Pradesh, where the Mayor in council takes the decisions, in the rest of the country, the real authority in the cities is with the state government appointed bureaucrats.
While reviewing the 74th constitutional amendment in the year 2012-13 through a ‘task force’ headed by KC Sivaramakrishnan (former secretary of MOUD), of which I was also a member, the task force had castigated the non-devolution of powers and had strongly recommended for financial devolution, according to Center for Policy Research India. The task force had also recommended, for the planning in the city to be handed over to the city administration, instead of para-statals or other bodies like the greater development authorities, which are never answerable to the people. The neo liberal reforms have further incapacitated the city governments to perform. The cities not just contribute to over 70 per cent of India’s GDP but also to 90 per cent of the total revenue collection of the government as per the article published by NIUA. Nearly one third of the country, now, lives in the cities and the pace of urbanisation is rapid. The neo liberal paradigm of governance has been highly perilous for city management. It has affected the city management in various ways.
Firstly, the large scale municipal cadres and workforce has reduced substantially, invariably, in all the cities across the country. The hardest hit areas have been water supply & distribution, sanitation, maintenance of infrastructure and such other utilities. The BJP government at the centre has brought in its flagship programmes of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) & the Smart City plan, but all of them have fallen on the ground. The SBM is an utter failure. The human resource that was employed to clean the cities in the past has substantially reduced by over 50 per cent in the post 1990s period. Simultaneously, the planning was so centralized that a ‘one size fits all’ solution was prescribed, which failed miserably.
According to news published on rediff.com, the SC had to comment on the Ghazipur dumping site in Delhi saying it has reached a few metres short of the Qutub Minar height. What an astounding feat that the SBM has achieved in the past few years especially in the national capital!
Secondly, the financial capacity of the cities has been robbed, and through the centralisation of the taxes, the cities become mere adjuncts of the respective state governments. The cities are motivated through foreign and national big-business funded consultants, to move for more user fees for utilities and preferably to outsource them. One of the reasons for the present mess in the solid waste management in the cities is that in almost all the cities, the garbage collection and also its treatment, has been outsourced. The City Sanitation Plans (CSPs) of the cities were planned by international consultants, some of whom had no connection with the ground realities and once the plan got to the implementation stage, they ran away leaving the city in a tizzy.
Thirdly, instead of enhancing the capacities of the cities with multi-stakeholders participation, the new model of governance, is that of the PPP. The new model of smart cities alienates the cities further from the elected bodies. The Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) formed in the smart cities are registered under the Companies Act. The city’s elected administration is completely aloof of this structure, where investment in the city has been routed through this model. The SPV mainly comprises bureaucrats and other technical staff. The SPV is not even answerable to the elected council. Some of the commentators have termed the formation of SPVs synonymous to writing the obituary of the 74th constitutional amendment. Fourthly, the plans of the cities, called the ‘master plans’, or the ‘development plans’, have mainly been the land use plans, without taking into consideration overall urbanisation. The master plans are mainly concerned about the Floor Area Ratio (FAR), or the Floor Space Index (FSI), as termed in some states.
This is nothing more than the land use plan. How city transport, service utilities, sanitation, etc. is to work-hardly finds mention in the master plans. Above all, never have these plans, been inclusive. Take for example, the Delhi Master Plan and its implementation. Though the Delhi Master Plan did mention about social housing, the fact remains that in Delhi the housing projects developed by the DDA, have been 80 per cent for the middle and upper middle classes and just 20 per cent for the poorer sections. These plans, for the cities, have never (barring a few exceptions) been prepared by the cities. Rather, some development agencies or authorities have been responsible for preparing them. Hence, in such a background, the city which is a live dynamic unit of public life is turning out into a nightmare for the people. No big surprise that nearly 40 per cent in tier I and 60 per cent people in tier II cities live in slums. There is no plan for them. Only contingency plan works for such areas. Their life and movement is on the basis of spontaneity.
In such an environment, the courts intervene, but with a middle class or upper middle class lens; not realizing that it is a systemic failure. The courts want the cities to be clean, but throwing the ‘city cleaners’ out of the city, uprooting them from their hutments. This is a paradox, which no court order can normalize. What is required is a more decentralized approach of governance where the people participate and have a ‘right to the city’. This right must be not only for material utilities, like water, sanitation and housing, but also for their own planning and governance.
Unfortunately, the courts cannot do that!
(The views expressed are the author’s own. They do not purport to reflect the views of Urban Update.)